Daily Tech Digest - April 23, 2017

Delaware Law Amendments Would Facilitate Blockchain Maintenance of Corporate Records

According to Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster, the blockchain could help to remove the middleman when it comes to how shares are held and voted, as at present they are operating on an outdated system that is too complex to determine who owns a share and how it’s used in decision making. Delaware is just one state in the U.S. that is showing an increased interest in the distributed ledger. Only recently, the Senate in the state of New Hampshire considered a blockchain bill that would deregulate digital currency transactions such as bitcoin from money transmitter regulations in the state. By doing so, the bill is designed to protect consumers when using digital currencies such as bitcoin instead of making them register with money transmitter regulators.


Do Collaboration Tools Create Security Risks For Your Business?

The business world is abuzz with the benefits of collaboration tools: less reliance on email, more organic collaboration on projects and better communication and relationships between teams. Collaboration tools encompass many solutions, including video conferencing, VoIP, document sharing and instant messaging. However, it is also important to think about the security risks that are inherent in tools such as document collaboration platforms, presentation software, remote support tools and virtual events. Each of these can create potential security threats, and evaluating vulnerabilities – and viable solutions – should be a sustainable part of your tool-selection process.


What’s To Do Before Ethereum Enters Its Third 'Metropolis' Stage?

One tricky part is making changes to all ethereum clients, no matter what programming language they're written in, in lockstep. Ethereum Foundation's Khokhlov has been writing tests using a tool called Hive to ensure not only that the clients implement the changes correctly, but that all clients agree on consensus-level changes. That's because if all clients don’t follow the same rules, there could be an accidental split into different networks (as happened briefly in November). Just like former phase changes Frontier and Homestead, the shift to Metropolis requires a 'hard fork' – meaning nodes or miners that fail to upgrade to the new blockchain will be left behind. Because of the possibility of an inadvertent split, hard forks are controversial and taken very seriously.


How IoT and Big Data are tackling Africa’s problems

“All solar systems are monitored in real time through the cloud,” Fruhen announced at a recent tech event in Nairobi. “Five years [ago] when we were founded nobody was thinking about IoT or Big Data but now we collect over 30 million payment notifications every year.” He added that they have more than one million device readings every day. This is from the batteries to temperature of the devices and sensors. Additionally, they have geographical data on where the devices are located. They also have 450,000 rooftop sunshine readings every day. They have calculated that they have saved their users US$338 million since they started, five years ago. “Cloud is the enabler for all these,” he reiterated. “We have 680 terabits of data on our platform.” The company has used its data to provide upgrade devices to users who have finished their solar loan.


5 Ways Cloud Vendors are Dealing with Data Privacy Concerns

Today, cloud vendors are designing managed cloud services from the ground up to meet the most advanced data security requirements, giving current and prospective customers the peace of mind that their data is private and secure. They should also deliver across-the-board support for every aspect of cloud security including physical security, network security, data protection, monitoring, and access controls. Data encryption for data in flight and at rest along with tokenisation of sensitive data items are strategies that can help improve Data Security and help to meet the most stringent of data privacy requirements. Cloud vendors understand that any successful cloud security solution requires close collaboration between you and your cloud service provider, knowing that it’s critical that your organisation has a programme that covers everything from data governance and compliance to cloud user access.


9 Essential #EdTech Ideas to Share With Your Team

To deny that tech will be important to students' futures seems unthinkable. But it's not enough to recognize students will need tech to be successful. Your students also need to see you as a willing learner of technology. They need to see you as a learner period. And it's a shame if you aren't leveraging your skills as a teacher because you aren't willing to learn technology. All of your teacher skills are priceless, but they can be even more relevant and powerful if you know how to effectively use technology for learning, too. ... Lots of kids like to use technology. But using tech because it is engaging isn't as important as using it because your students are engaged. If your students are curious and motivated learners, they will have questions that need answers. They will want to create and share new knowledge.


Learning to Think Like a Computer

Computational thinking is not new. Seymour Papert, a pioneer in artificial intelligence and an M.I.T. professor, used the term in 1980 to envision how children could use computers to learn. But Jeannette M. Wing, in charge of basic research at Microsoft and former professor at Carnegie Mellon, gets credit for making it fashionable. In 2006, on the heels of the dot-com bust and plunging computer science enrollments, Dr. Wing wrote a trade journal piece, “Computational Thinking.” It was intended as a salve for a struggling field. “Things were so bad that some universities were thinking of closing down computer science departments,” she recalled. Some now consider her article a manifesto for embracing a computing mind-set. Like any big idea, there is disagreement about computational thinking — its broad usefulness as well as what fits in the circle.


Regression - Professional analyst should be able to answer these three questions.

To produce a regression analysis of inference that can be justified or trustworthy in the sense that helpful. The term in the statistical methods that generate a linear the best estimator is not bias (best linear unbiased estimator) abbreviated BLUE. Then there are some other things that are also important to note, in which the data to be processed, must meet certain requirements. In terms of statistical methods some terms or conditions of the so-called classical assumption test. Because they meet the assumptions of classical statistical coefficient will be obtained which actually became estimator of parameters that can be justified or accurate ... With adjustments being an attempt to fulfill certain requirements (classical assumption) in the regression analysis as a form of simplification in the application of modern economics, which is a form of empirical science.


Google’s New Chip Is a Stepping Stone to Quantum Computing Supremacy

The six-qubit chip is also a test of a manufacturing method in which the qubits and the conventional wiring that controls them are made on separate chips later “bump bonded” together. That approach, a major focus of Google’s team since it was established just over two years ago, is intended to eliminate the extra control lines needed in a larger chip, which can interfere with how qubits function. “That process is all working,” says Martinis. “Now we’re ready to kind of move fast.” Designs for devices with 30 to 50 qubits are already in progress, he says. He briefly flashed up images of the six-qubit chip at the recent IEEE TechIgnite conference in San Bruno, California, but his group has yet to formally disclose technical details.


Data Transformation is the New Digital Transformation

What is data worth? In my 2010 predictions I expected to see “datasets increasingly recognized as a serious, balance sheet-worthy asset”. I was a bit early there. Data is clearly still not a well understood or significant investment category – brand “goodwill” is better accounted for, but there is no doubt that markets value companies perceived to be data rich with higher evaluations than other companies. Data is a moat. IBM acquired the Weather Company for around $2bn according to the Financial Times, and promptly put CEO David Kenny in charge of a swathe of its Watson and Cloud units. Uber now has a business selling data to companies including Starwood, and is leveraging data to make deals the public sector organisations such as the city of Boston. But taking advantage of data is hard – requiring entirely new skill sets. Valuing it is hard. Cleaning it is hard. Querying it is hard. Managing and maintaining it is hard.



Quote for the day:


"A problem is only a problem when viewed as a problem." -- Robin Sharma


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